Once abused, neglected animals offer healing at The Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita

Dana Kocsis, a volunteer at The Gentle Barn, keeps Biscuit, a 750-pound pig, company on visiting day Sunday at the Barn.
photos by David Crane — Staff Photographer

SANTA CLARITA >> Crystal Kimmel of Camarillo couldn’t stop grinning Sunday as a majestic black horse named Sasha repeatedly slobbered on her hand while lapping up the last bits of raw carrot there.

It was only Kimmel’s second time at The Gentle Barn — which marks its 15th anniversary later this month — but she had already become a fan of the rustic ranch on Sierra Highway that houses 170 farm and other animals rescued from abuse and neglect and then rehabilitated. On Sunday, she and her husband brought their 9-year-old and 13-year-old sons, hoping to get them excited about helping people and animals.

“It calms me down,” said Kimmel, 32, as she paused from talking sweetly to Sasha, who was reportedly ridden by an impatient person who hit her every time she made a mistake until she eventually would not move. “I’ve been abused myself so I know how it feels. Being around them makes me feel better, like I’m not alone. It helps me to help them.”

Teaching Kimmel and her sons about Sasha, now a playful therapy horse, was 14-year-old Siena Foster-Soltis, a volunteer who said she had dreamed of working at The Gentle Barn for nearly a decade.

“The first time I came here, when I was around 6 or 5, I actually cried because it was so nice,” Foster-Soltis, of Studio City, said. “I, too, have had a past...and it’s very soothing and makes you feel really happy that these animals, you can relate (to) and help them.”

During the week, The Gentle Barn and its animals work with inner-city, at risk and special needs youth and others, including veterans and the homeless. On Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., members of the public are invited to roam the grounds and hug a cow, pet a goat, rub a pig’s belly, feed a horse and admire a llama or a male turkey nicknamed “Sir Francy Pants.”

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The nonprofit organization, which is supported by donations, was founded by Ellie Laks, 46, who has held a life-long “obsession” with animals and lives on the Santa Clarita property with her husband Jay Weiner and their three children. While growing up on the East Coast, Laks would bring home baby birds who had fallen out of their nests or turtles whose shells had somehow gotten broken. Her plan, she said, was to have a house full of animals that she would rescue and befriend though her parents could not be persuaded.

“I was very lonely in my childhood; I didn’t feel like I fit in,” said Laks, who also recounts the story in her book “My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope” that was released in March. “Animals were always my witnesses. They were always the ones that made me feel like I’m OK the way that I am...When I was 7 years old, I had this concept that I’ll bring all these animals who were lonely and together we’ll heal all the lonely people.”

In 1999, Laks started The Gentle Barn in the backyard of her then-Tarzana home, she said, after rescuing an old goat from an ill-managed petting zoo in the San Fernando Valley after practically staging a 12-day sit-in, and then more than dozen other animals in need of treatment, care and love from the same facility. In 2003, she and Weiner moved into their “six-acre paradise” in Santa Clarita, which includes pastures and an organic garden.

The nonprofit has garnered attention from a number of celebrities for its work and was even featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The barn’s motto is: Teaching people kindness and compassion to others, each other and our planet.

“We’re really trying to focus on sustainability,” Weiner, who helps run the facility with his wife, said. “We go on nature hikes and we introduce them to the animals of course...If you have a horse that went through horrible abuse and neglect, you’re able to connect that with a child’s story of abuse and neglect and there’s a magical healing that happens.”

In a large petting pen, María Cristina Jiménez was seen Sunday massaging the corpulent body of Zeus, a 7-year-old pig who is nearly 800 pounds and was snorting with delight at the attention.

Born in a county fair and slated for a slaughter house, Zeus was rescued by a family when he was a still a baby, chimed in volunteer Irina Bunina, who noted the pig is “very friendly.”

Jiménez, a healer and certified yoga instructor, has been coming every Sunday for about a month to give Zeus a massage but acknowledged she was doing it more for herself than for the portly pig she had come to adore.

“I feel better when I’m with him — less alone, I guess, and as part of something greater,” Jiménez said.

A celebration marking the 15th anniversary of The Gentle Barn, including vegan food and music, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Aug. 24 on its grounds at 15825 Sierra Highway.